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Thursday, February 07, 2013

News Vatican Information Service 02/07/2013

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POPE: YOUTH CONDITIONS AND CULTURE, INESCAPABLE POINT OF REFERENCE
FOR PASTORAL OUTREACH

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TO FRATERNITY OF ST. CHARLES BORROMEO: HELP VOCATIONS GROW

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AUDIENCES

______________________________________

POPE:
YOUTH CONDITIONS AND CULTURE, INESCAPABLE POINT OF REFERENCE FOR
PASTORAL OUTREACH

Vatican
City, 7 June 2013 (VIS) – This morning, Benedict XVI received
participants in the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for
Culture, which has the theme of "Emerging Youth Cultures".
The Pope expressed his hopes that their work will be fruitful and
contribute to "the Church's work in the lives of young people,
which is a complex and articulated reality that can no longer be
understood from within a homogeneous cultural basis but only in a
horizon … that is made up of a plurality of viewpoints,
perspectives, and strategies."

The
Pope then spoke of the "widespread climate of instability"
that is affecting the cultural, political, and economic areas?noting
in the latter, the difficulty of young persons to find employment?and
that has psychological and relational repercussions. "The
uncertainty and fragility that characterize so many young people
often pushes them to the margins, making them almost invisible and
absent from society's cultural and historical processes. … The
affective and emotional sphere, … strongly affected by this climate
… gives birth to apparently contradictory phenomena like the
spectacularization of private life and a narcissistic selfishness.
Even the religious dimension, the experience of faith and membership
in the Church are often lived from an individualistic and emotional
perspective."

"Nevertheless,
positive data are not lacking, such as volunteering, "profound
and sincere faith experiences, … the efforts undertaken, in many
parts of the world, to build societies capable of respecting the
freedom and dignity of others, beginning with the smallest and
weakest. All of this," he emphasized, "consoles us and
helps us to draw a more accurate and objective picture of youth
cultures. We cannot, therefore, be content with reading the cultural
phenomena of the youth according to consolidated paradigms, paradigms
that have become cliches. Nor can we analyse them in ways that are no
longer useful, that are based on outdated and inadequate cultural
categories. Ultimately, we are facing a very complex but fascinating
reality that must be thoroughly understood and loved with great
empathy, a reality wherein we must pay very close attention to the
bottom lines and to what is to come."

The
Pope referred to the youth of many Third World countries that, with
their cultures and needs, represent "a challenge to the global
consumer society and to the culture of established privileges, which
benefit a small group of the population of the Western world.
Consequently, youth cultures are also 'emerging', in the sense that
they demonstrate a profound need, a cry for help, or even a
'provocation' that cannot be ignored or neglected either by civil
society or by the ecclesial community."

Benedict
XVI repeated his concerns for the so-called "educational
emergency", which accompanies the other emergencies affecting
the different dimensions of the human person and our fundamental
relationships "as the growing difficulties in the labour market
or in the effort over time to be faithful to responsibilities
assumed. From this would follow, for the future of the world and of
all of humanity, a not merely economic and social impoverishment, but
a human and spiritual one as well. If the young no longer hope or
progress, if they don't put their energy, their vitality, and their
capacity for anticipating the future into the dynamic of history,
then we will find ourselves a humanity that is locked in itself,
lacking confidence and a positive attitude toward the future."

"Although
we are aware of the many problematic situations, which also touch
upon the spheres of faith and membership in the Church, we wish to
renew our faith in the young and reaffirm that the Church looks to
their condition and their cultures as an essential and inescapable
reference point for pastoral outreach. … The Church has confidence
in the young. She hopes in them and in their energy. She needs their
vitality in order to continue living the mission entrusted to her by
Christ with renewed enthusiasm. I very much hope, therefore, that the
Year of Faith will be, also for the younger generations, a precious
opportunity to rediscover and strengthen the friendship with Christ
from which springs the joy and enthusiasm to profoundly change
cultures and societies."

TO
FRATERNITY OF ST. CHARLES BORROMEO: HELP VOCATIONS GROW

Vatican
City, 7 June 2013 (VIS) – "Education is always fundamental for
the truth to grow," the Pope said to members of the Priestly
Fraternity of St. Charles Borromeo during an audience that took place
yesterday in the Vatican. The Fraternity is a Society of Apostolic
Life born from the Communion and Liberation movement founded, before
he was ordained a priest, by Massimo Camisasca, now bishop of Reggio
Emilia-Guastella, Italy. Present at the audience were the current
Superior General, Fr Paolo Sottopietra, the president of the
Communion and Liberation Fraternity, Julian Carron, and 18 priests
from the missions to the different continents.

"I
knew the faith, the joy, the strength and wealth of ideas, and the
creativity of the faith" of the founder of Communion and
Liberation, Don Luigi Giussani," the Holy Father said. From that
"grew a great friendship between us and, through him, I have
also known your community better. I am glad that his successor is
with us and that this great work that inspires so many people?so many
lay persons, men and women, and so many priests?continues, helping to
spread the Gospel and to grow the Kingdom of God."

"I
have also met Massimo Camisasca. We've talked of many things. I have
seen his artistic creativity, his capacity to see and interpret the
signs of the times and his great gift as an educator and priest. …
It is nice to know that, here, a new priestly fraternity is growing
in the spirit of St. Charles Borromeo, that great example of a
Shepherd who is truly compelled by the love of Christ, seeking the
littlest ones, loving them and thus truly building faith and making
the Church grow."

"Your
fraternity is now large, a sign that there are vocations," he
concluded. "But our openness to meeting, accompanying, guiding,
and helping vocations to grow is also necessary. This is what I am
grateful for to Fr. Camisasca, who has done a great job as an
educator. Today, education is always fundamental for the truth to
grow, so that our being as children of God and brothers and sisters
of Jesus Christ might grow."

AUDIENCES

Vatican
City, 7 February 2013 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father received in
separate audiences:

Annegret
Kramp-Karrenbauer, Minister-President of the state of the Saarland,
Germany, with her entourage, and

Cardinal
Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation
of Peoples.